


The Beginning

by orphan_account



Category: Highlander: The Series, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Everything, Gen, Immortality, MAG 64: Burial Rites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-02-01 04:53:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It took millennia, maybe more, but there came a time when being considered aheno longer felt strange, when the End not just reacted to the human name, but actually considered itself tobeMethos, to be part of this world.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know where this came from. Pretend I was drunk?
> 
> Not edited, not betaed.

The End had come to this world as the first living organism died. Not in it's entirety of course, it would never want that, for then all would be over, but part of it had manifested in this reality at just that moment, had taken form and remained on earth ever since. Always present, always evolving.  
  
It was the first entity to reach this world, and for the longest time it remained the only one.  
  
Slowly, over millions of years others emerged. They were not as strong as the End, they shaped and influenced, from time to time even had avatars, but they didn't walk the earth like it did. They weren't omnipresent. They wanted to be though. They were active and eager, wanted rituals and sacrifices, wanted to break through the veil and fully manifest.  
  
The End didn't, not truly. What use would that be? If everything came to an end the world would be lifeless. Devoid of any possibility for future endings. It didn't want that. Then it'd have to find a new reality to feed on.  
  
The others could keep their games, the End could afford to remain passive and wait. They were greedy infants and it would survive them all.  
  
As time passed, the End took many forms, fed on even more. Claws and tentacles and fins and wings. Others too, so many others, but it's current form, human they called it, could only retain a finite number of memories - around five thousand years it estimated, so before that most things were a blur.  
  
There were some indomitable facts it couldn't help but know, of course. What it was; what lurked beyond this reality.  
  
Less important things, like when it's form had first taken human shape, when it had first started calling itself a _he_, had given itself a name … that it didn't remember. There was no need. Why did it even need to assign itself a gender? It was the End, not the Mother. There was no such thing. All that mattered was that as long as there was life in this world it would be fed, would thrive. Humans were such a great source of fear, were so creative when it came to death.__  
  
They evolved. Mastered fire and invented the wheel. Started farming. Became aware of all the different ways death could find them. Then they discovered more. Humans, unlike any species before them, had such an infinite potential when it came to fearing the End.  
  
Yet taking a human form did have it's drawbacks. It came with a human mind. Human minds were complex not just when it came to fear. They craved entertainment. Life, not death. At least not always and rarely for themselves. They wanted to experience things and create memories, and all of a sudden so did it. Did he. It no longer wanted to just feed, that happened without even trying, no, the longer it was human, the more it started to feel.  
  
It felt boredom mostly. That was new. Humans were so easily bored.  
  
It adjusted. The End always adjusted, and humans - being human - was so entertaining. They were so creative, came up with so many things to fight boredom.  
  
And so the End remained on Earth, living.  
  
It took millennia, maybe more, but there came a time when being considered a _he_ was something that no longer felt strange, when it not just reacted to the name, but actually considered itself to _be_ Methos, to be part of this world, and not just a hungry visitor.  
  
It was around that time when writing was first invented. Methos loved writing. Words had power, and once written down they endured. There were so many possibilities. So many things to be done, to be experimented with.  
  
Suddenly his human memory was no longer so limiting. He could take notes, write down what he wanted to remember even after five thousand years, like how to prepare this wonderful and most satisfying beverage called beer.  
  
Beer was great. It was filling and nutritious and it made humans loose some of their restraint. Made them more likely to gamble higher stakes when he played dice with them. It was also delicious. That was the most important bit. This was not something that could be allowed to be forgotten.  
  
And so Methos started writing. Marked wood and clay and turtle shells. Travelled and tried out new things.  
  
He spent a long time in the fertile crescent. First in the land between the two great rivers, then in Egypt, where there was only one river, but they revered him like nowhere before. They were obsessed with the End, with dying and death. It was almost intoxicating. They honored him and feared him. They created elixirs and instruments and rites in his name. Rites so vile and fascinating, so impressive in their corrupt creativity that it left him speechless. Speechless and fascinated.  
  
Of course he had to join them. His human mind was nothing if not eager to experience all facets of life and he wanted to find out more about those who were willing to study the beyond.  
  
There were dozens who attempted to create an immortal being, a bridge between here and the afterlife. Not an avatar. Never that. Methos didn't like that, didn't want that, and he steered them away whenever they tried. He was his own avatar, should he want to be, and had no need for a human one. Yet they persisted in their experiments, got more and more reckless, in pursuit of his blessing.  
  
And then one day, in the very heart of the kingdom, a group of particularly devout priests had a breakthrough in their experiments.  
  
Methos had been there. Had lived among them, working and sleeping and laughing. Had watched them standing around the table, igniting a blue spark, had watched the current travel through the body on offer, had drank and played dice with them, had seen the willing sacrifice shudder and convulse as Methos tugged at reality, just a bit.  
  
He had watched the fear and rising horror on their faces, as the blue flame burned away the skin of the chosen one, as he screamed and lost his hair, as he jumped into the river and doused himself in acid, trying to bring about his own end. An end he would not be granted. Would never be granted no matter how much he yearned for it. Not by fire. Nor water, not by anything.  
  
They tried to calm him, now nothing more than clumps of flesh and charred, soaked bone. He was blessed! He was immortal! He was … he was unable to die and wanted nothing but that. There would be no salvation, no end. Not for him. He wouldn't get it. Not on the first try and not on the last. Never.  
  
He had willingly given himself to the End and had been denied.  
  
He raged. He needed no food, no sleep, no brain and no blood. He could not speak. The priests did not know what to do with him. Nobody did. They had played with the End and now they knew what awaited them should they try again.  
  
The survivors trembled and prayed. Proud and terrified, that mesmerising blue spark always on their minds.  
  
Methos had never felt such fear, such devotion from others.  
  
In the end it was decided to act like the chosen one had died. Their belief had made him immortal. Surely it could bring them salvation?  
  
They performed all the rites, covered him in natron. Waited and prayed.  
  
They built a labyrinth in the desert disguised as a tomb, marked it with the symbol for infinity, put him in a sarcophagus, wrapped tightly, unable to move. He was motionless, quiet. They could pretend he was dead.  
  
There was no heartbeat. No heart. No canopic jar.  
  
But the chosen one wasn't dead. Every single one of them knew it. He would never be dead. The End had made sure of that.  
  
Methos left the man's favorite dice as an offering. Once the bandages had turned to dust and the wood started to rot, perhaps he would find use for them again. A reminder that the End always won, even if it was only out of spite.  
  
They sealed the tomb and returned to the temple. Doing their best to forget. There was a lot of beer.  
  
This was how Methos got his first avatar. Also his last, if not his only.  
  
He hoped the priests had learned their lesson.  
  
They hadn't. They were devoted. Devoted to death, to the End. They would forever be his, weather he wanted them or not. They adjusted their rites, took notes, prayed.  
  
If it had been just that, if they‘d just been random people, then Methos would have rolled his eyes and wiped them out, like the annoyances they sometimes were. But they were not just that. He had spent years with them and found most of them to be genuinely good company. They were studious, smart and educated. Appreciated a good beer and were always up for a laugh. His human mind had gotten attached to them, _liked_ them, obsessive fanatics or not.  
  
So he stayed and did nothing.  
  
A year later, on the anniversary of the first successful creation of an avatar, they found themselves in the same sacred laboratory again. Not to experiment. No. Just to honor the End that earned them their livelihood. There had been rites of course, rites and beer. They used different elixirs, different chants. Yet they craved to see that blue spark again. Nobody voiced the thought, and yet they wished, deeply. When it did finally ignite, Methos pushed, pushed the deepest and most visceral fear of the End into them. Set them alight and convulsing. Saw them fall to the floor, dead.  
  
He liked them. If they so craved the End then he would give them life. Life enough to let them see everything around them end.  
  
It took hours for the first one to gasp and come back to life. Even longer for them all to get up and realise that it was mid-morning.  
  
It took months before one of them figured out what had happened that night. Not that any of them truly ever would.  
  
Methos smiled. They had been good companions. But after a lifetime or two he got bored again, like he always did, and so he left. Across the sea and over the mountains, to the steppes where he found a new home and new friends. His favorite ones were four-legged and pale and ran like the wind.  
  
He brought them with him when he returned, riding on a pale horse. Time was hard to tell when he didn't pay attention. It might have been a few hundred years, maybe more. His former companions were scattered, no longer part of the priesthood. Instead they had founded a new cult devoted to the End. They called themselves immortals, for that's what they were, but not truly, for the was one way they could die and _there could only be one_.  
  
The first time he had met an immortal and been told the story - apparently they could sense all those marked by the End - he had blinked, then laughed in the man's face. He had given them life and they repaid him by chopping off each other's heads and calling it a game? He wasn't sure if it was the best or worst kind of devotion.  
  
He lost himself for a while. If humans truly craved death then he would give it to them. Not completely of course, never that, but enough to end their individual worlds. He met Kronos, who was the most curious of creatures. A disciple of the End, playing the game of immortals, yet so in love with the Corruption it was almost funny.  
  
They became close as brothers, traveled and indulged themselves, until they met Caspian and Silas and became even more. They were the horsemen and they rode for a thousand years, bringing fear and devastation to everything they touched.  
  
They thought him one of them, marked by the End, just older, much older. Quickening, they called the mark. His so much stronger than theirs. Of course it was, he was not marked after all, he was the source. Later he learned to dampen it's apparent strength, made himself appear younger and weaker, and somehow everyone seemed to forget that it hadn't always been so.  
  
His three brothers had taken everything so seriously, had prided themselves in being the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They hadn't realised that it was just as much a game as the one played by those carrying his mark. Perhaps even more so.  
  
Over time the three of them evolved into more than just disciples of the End though. They became avatars. Not of the End, but of Corruption, Slaughter and Flesh. They painted their faces with strange black lines and became Pestilence, War and Famine. Methos wasn't jealous, they were his brothers in blood and death and more. He didn't mind sharing them with other entities. It was kind of entertaining to be honest. The other entities were so eager to break through and manifest, hoped that with his help their killing spree could amass enough fear to one day manage a ritual.  
  
As if Methos would let it come to that. Not that Caspian or Silas would have had the brains for it, or the will. Even Kronos, smart as he was, did not crave complete manifestation of the Corruption. He enjoyed the process, yes, wanted to bathe in it and ride forever. But a ritual would have meant the end of that and that couldn't be. His brothers would never fully be theirs.  
  
Kronos, Caspian and Silas had thought him to be an avatar, too. They called him Death as he covered half his face in gory blue paint and rode out into the sun. They both pitied and envied him for being satisfied with only serving one entity. They rode and rode, bringing the End and more to many a village in the Bronze Age. It had been fun. Their devotion. Their fearlessness in his presence. Their trust and their love.  
  
But like everything, this too ended, and here he was now, sitting on a bench, beer in hand, staring at a sky that was staring back, and wondering how it had come to this.

He took another sip and sighed. He should get going, there were things to be done.


End file.
